ABSTRACT
The idea that several people in a community participate in childrearing was popularised by Hillary Clinton in her bestselling book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us (1996). The phrase “It takes a village to raise a child” captures one key aspect of human family life. Humans are a cooperative breeding species, meaning that individuals other than the biological mother tend to be involved in childrearing (Hrdy, 1999, 2009). In biology, these others are called “allomothers”, and depending on the living conditions and environment, they may include several different types of relatives, friends, neighbours or formal child care providers (Daly & Perry, 2017; Perry & Daly, 2017). Cooperative breeding is a species-typical means of childrearing in humans as well as certain other animals. Based on current knowledge, approximately 3 per cent of mammals (e.g., African wild dogs, Kalahari meerkats, naked mole-rats), less than 10 per cent of birds, and some fish are cooperative breeders (e.g., Desjardins et al., 2007; Jennions & Macdonald, 1994; Jetz & Rubenstein, 2011). Humans are an exception compared to other great apes; for instance, among chimpanzees, gorillas and orangutans, our closest living relatives, the mother alone is almost always responsible for childrearing (Hrdy, 2007).
